A surface coating is generally applied to a damaged portion of a vehicle, to return the surface of the vehicle to its prior undamaged appearance. To repair the damaged portion of a vehicle panel, a combination of mechanical forming putties, fillers, primers, paints and topcoats are typically used. Many of these materials are dissolved in solvent based carriers and require significant amounts of time for solvent evaporation and resin curing. Attempts have been made to accelerate this process using heat or infrared irradiating devices in baking tunnels or chambers.
Heat-based curing methods have disadvantages in that they require time before an appropriate curing temperature is reached and once that temperature is reached, the heat or infrared energy is not localized to the region where curing takes place. This leads to heating of areas surrounding the intended curing region. Once curing is completed, both the surface coating and surrounding area must be cooled before the repair can be continued. Both the heating and cooling processes extend the amount of time required to complete a given repair.
New compositions and methods for curing surface coatings are needed that are faster and easier to employ. Such methods can be used to improve the efficiency and speed with which a repair operation can be completed.